


Like Father, Like Son

by AugustStories



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt Sam Winchester, Loss of Faith, Minor Gabriel/Sam Winchester, POV Sam Winchester, Post-Episode: s14e20 Moriah, Post-Season/Series 14, Reflection, Sam is sad, Writer Chuck Shurley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 02:35:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19432147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: As the world around him goes darker with every passing minute, Sam reflects on his faith in God and how he should maybe have lost it so much earlier.For years he had thought to know which of his first sons was most like Chuck, only to be proven so catastrophically wrong.





	Like Father, Like Son

“Don't stay up too late.“

Dean's last words before he left the library and turned in for the night barely registered with Sam, and it wasn't like one night of rest was going to do them any good, least of all give them a sudden advantage. The world had gone to shit two weeks ago, not with a snap, not with a boom, just with some almost gently spoken words from a pissed off God.

Sam, Dean and Cas had made it out of that graveyard by a miracle alone, maybe the last one they would ever be granted, forced to leave Jack's body behind as Baby raced them off towards the bunker. The one place left on this Earth who might actually be safe.

Since then they had basically been numb.

Because what did you do when God turned the stakes against you? God himself!

They had called the few friends they had still left, warned them, offered them up a chance to come to them, Jody, Donna and the girls were the only ones who had so far gotten back to them, saying they were on their way. A good day before the cellphone coverage had broken down, before electricity had started flunking out more and more. The bunker remained stable, back-up generators and independence from the outside circuits to think, Dean spent no little amount of time making sure that everything was running smoothly and was indeed capable of keeping going long after the world around them was truly burning.

Distraction at its best.

Especially because Cas was not talking to him, both of them haunting the corridors, restless and desperate for every second of distraction. Cas was constantly on the move to ward the bunker with everything he could find, reached out to the few angels on Earth who were still friendly to him but like with the brothers, barely anyone had gotten back to him. Only Anael, and like with the girls, she had last been heard from as well before things really went down the drain.

Caught in the middle between Dean's and Cas' cold war, Sam was reeling, free-falling, panicking and just not understanding, and contrary to his brother and their angel he just couldn't ignore it.

Cas and Dean had lost their faith in God a long time ago, even before the first round of the Apocalypse had really hit them, Sam never had. He had held onto it, physically in the form of taking Dean's amulet and keeping it safe and on his person for years, and more importantly Sam had never stopped believing. Believing in God, believing in his mercy and his forgiveness, believing in his good will.

When Chuck had reappeared to them the first time, right at the growing climax against Amara, Sam had been so excited, so happy because yes, he was still there, yes he had come back to help. Dean might have been surprised over Chuck's personality in the days that followed their first meeting but Sam hadn't, not really, because he had recognised something in Chuck's reluctance to help, in his apparent 'given up' attitude.

'I just want it to be over.'

Sam had seen Gabriel.

He had seen the man who could only be Gabriel's Dad. A funny man, a kind man, a celestial being who had embraced humanity and all its irks. A man who wasn't afraid of the impending doom but who just didn't want to fight against his family, who didn't want to hurt them. Just like Gabriel hadn't wanted to hurt Lucifer or Michael for the longest time, Chuck hadn't wanted to hurt his sister. It had caused Sam to back then miss Gabriel even more, seeing all these little things reflected back in Chuck. A stabbing in his heart when Chuck laughed, Gabriel's laugh, when there was a hint of mischief in Chuck's eyes, the same look Gabriel had carried so often as the Trickster.

And Sam had felt safe.

He had felt safe when they had needed to bring Lucifer into his home because Chuck was there, because Sam knew that he could trust Chuck to keep them safe, just like he had trusted Gabriel in the end. And then, just like the youngest of his first sons, Chuck had come around and taken action against his sister as well, for them, to protect humanity, to protect the brothers.

And like Gabriel, Chuck had paid the price for it, only getting away with his life because in the end Amara wasn't Lucifer and had loved her brother enough to forgive him, to heal him.

After they had left, Sam's belief, his faith had remained strong, God wasn't gone, he was just out there somewhere and he would return if they needed him. Sam had believed in it because he had never stopped believing in Gabriel either, even with the Archangel being dead.

His faith had gotten his first crack when they had seen the other world, when such disaster had gotten revealed to them and he could have only asked himself what humanity had done there to deserve this abandonment from Chuck. That crack had widened when Gabriel had returned, broken, torn and a shell of the great man he had once been.

And as Sam had watched over him while he waited for Cas to come back to the bunker to help, he had prayed to Chuck and asked him not just once how he could have not known, or the even more heartbreaking, horrifying option. How could he have lied and pretended to think that Gabriel was dead when he clearly hadn't been? How much of an effort would it have been to get Gabriel out from Asmodeus' hands? God against a Prince of Hell, wasn't that child's play?

And then everything turned so fast against them that Sam hadn't had time to doubt again.

Gabriel dying again, Lucifer and other Michael in their world, Jack losing his powers, Lucifer dead but Dean lost to Michael.

When they had caught Michael to free Dean and this raging cold-heartened Archangel who had won his Apocalypse, this smug bastard who thought everyone was beneath him, when Michael had given his speeches about God and drafts and games and lying and not caring, Sam hadn't listened after the first few words.

That wasn't his God. The person Michael was raving about wasn't the Chuck he knew.

Chuck cared. Chuck cared about them. They were more than just names on a whiteboard for Chuck.

Their Chuck was Gabe's Dad, kind and warm and forgiving and merciful, and Sam believed in him.

Michael died and Jack rolled out of control.

And every single night Sam prayed.

'Come back. Come back and help us.'

“What a fool I was,” Sam muttered to himself now, sitting alone at a table, no books open, no laptop, because what was there left to research. God had opened Hell and turned the lights off on Earth. Nothing more clear and obvious than that, they were screwed, no book could give him a solution to this mess. Instead he kept his now ever trembling hands busy with turning around the Archangel Blade in his hand, around and around and around until his shoulder ached again, and even then he kept on going.

Again and again and again.

It wasn't the last piece he had of Gabriel, but it felt like the most significant.

For years Sam had believed that if the world was on the edge of destruction again they could count on Chuck to come help them again, that if things went beyond their strengths they could count on God. Like Cas he had believed that Jack could be saved by Chuck, that they wouldn't have to kill him to stop him from causing more destruction.

And even his mother's death at the hands of the Nephilim hadn't stopped Sam from hanging onto that faith, even if it was tainted now.

Only to be slapped in the face.

Hard.

Like father, like son.

But Sam had been wrong.

Chuck wasn't like Gabriel, that might have just been a role he had played to lure them into a completely false sense of security.

Chuck... God... He was like Lucifer. He was like Michael. He was like Raphael.

Chuck wasn't human, not in nature, not at all.

Chuck had played out their lives like a video game, like pawns on a chessboard, like stick figures on a whiteboard and the pen had been in his sons' fingers first and after they had been gone he had taken it up himself. Writing. Writing and plotting their pain, their losses, their failures and their victories, their joy and their brief happiness, everything had been a play to him.

For his entertainment.

And the second something was there that could become a threat to him, he had gotten rid of it.

Had written them into getting rid of it. Sam, Dean and Cas.

Even when that danger were his own first sons, or his grandson.

No fretting, no danger to God's little games as long as he had the brothers and Cas to move along the boardgame.

Chuck wasn't like Gabriel, he didn't love humanity, he maybe never had, everything had just been a game to him, and not the good kind of all. The other Michael had been right in the end, just failed drafts and a God dropping worlds like a child did with old toys.

Like father, like son.

Lucifer, Michael and Raphael surely couldn't have been prouder if they had only gotten a chance to see this, see their father punish the Winchesters defiance by ending the world. He was their father, he was like them, cold and dark and without love. There was no forgiveness, no mercy, not in Lucifer, not in either Michael, not in Raphael, not in Chuck.

Lucifer had played with them, with a cold heart and a disinterest in their opinions. Just like Chuck had now.

Their Michael had been so cold, just blindly following along a story, taken what was written for granted and set. Just like Chuck had now, pen still in hand.

Raphael had not cared in the slightest, humanity had just been ants, just something to use as a means to get where he wanted to go. Just like Chuck had now.

The other world's Michael had been single-minded in his focus, not bothering about casualties at all, his plan set, the path bloody. Just like Chuck's now.

Chuck was all of them put together into something that couldn't truly be defeated.

Kill God and end existence. Don't kill God and the world ends.

Didn't Sam like that view.

He sighed and stroked a finger down the golden blade, he missed Gabriel more than ever these days, his faith eradicated and dusted away with a snap of God's fingers and Jack's horrifying scream. He missed Gabriel, he wanted him back, he wanted something back that he could believe in, that he could turn to, in prayers, in hopes.

He knew that soon enough Cas and Dean would get over their stony silence and then they would both break in their grief over losing Jack and Chuck's betrayal and ultimately turn towards each other to lean on. Cas and Dean would give each other hold and Sam would stand on the outside again, longing for a friend to share this whole burden with.

Jess, Madison, Ruby, Amelia, Eileen and yes, even Gabriel.

So many lost chances that had been ripped away from him. By Chuck's typing.

Every person he had lost along the way, his own damn parents and the little brother he had never been allowed to know, all taken away by Chuck's desire for fucking storytelling.

Chuck had never been the good guy in the shadows, he had never been a grander version of his Trickster son who held back and watched until he was truly needed at the last moment. Gabriel hadn't wanted to go against his family because he had been afraid to hurt them, to lose them for good. But Chuck? How had Sam ever thought that Chuck was the same?

Chuck had given the Mark to Lucifer, just so he could use his sons to lock his sister away because he couldn't bring himself to work things out with her. Then he had created a prison and forced Michael to throw his own brother out of Heaven and into the pits of Hell when Lucifer had rebelled. Then he had fully abandoned Heaven and left Michael to deal with the aftermath, left his sons to work out grief over losing a brother all on their own. Fuck, Sam could even sympathise with fucking Michael now, he might have gone stone cold and utterly blind to free will as well if he had been forced to lock one brother into Hell, lose a little brother and take over responsbility for all of Heaven in basically the same day.

Chuck hadn't even cared when the angels had gone to war with another as Raphael had fought to open the Cage for another round at the Apocalypse. Or when Metatron had caused so many angels to die so brutally.

And Chuck had never cared that Gabriel had spent an eternity as a prisoner, milked like a Grace cow and tortured like a chew toy for a Prince of Hell. If Chuck had known how Michael was faring in the Cage, then he sure as hells had known where Gabriel was.

Like father, like son.

And Chuck was filled to the brink with all the questionable qualities that his first three sons had shown.

Sam's belief was gone, his faith broken, ten years after Dean and Cas had lost theirs, as it turned out, it had only been a matter of time.

All he had left was a bunker safehouse, an Archangel blade he clutched in his hand at night to find even some hours of sleep and prayers to an Archangel who laid in the Empty.


End file.
